CBS will be rerunning I Love Lucy and Dick Van Dyke show tonight .Friday 22nd 8PM EST .I've seen them the last year.How much more they can get out of these classics besides colorizing them for SDTV and HDTV.Not really a fan of colorizing .Nevermind the 4.3 box they put it in.

I've downloaded both shows last year and play them through WMP player and turn off the color.

The same for all of the Rankin Bass Christmas classics,Charlie Brown ,Holiday movies and other old holiday favorites. Its like getting all whats left out of an orange to make orange juice by squeezing the crap out it.

CBS will be rerunning I Love Lucy and Dick Van Dyke show tonight ...Nevermind the 4.3 box they put it in.

I don't get the complaint about 4x3 pillarbox? That's the original aspect ratio. They definitely should not crop them to get 16x9.

Also, the great thing about these reworks is that the originals are high quality 35mm film, so the HD quality is excellent. As far as the colorization goes, I agree it's unnecessary, but at least the quality is much better than it was when it was first tried years ago; and, as you say, you can turn the color off.

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I don't get the complaint about 4x3 pillarbox? That's the original aspect ratio. They definitely should not crop them to get 16x9.

Also, the great thing about these reworks is that the originals are high quality 35mm film, so the HD quality is excellent. As far as the colorization goes, I agree it's unnecessary, but at least the quality is much better than it was when it was first tried years ago; and, as you say, you can turn the color off.

I watched both shows last night (December 22) on my flat screen, using the 4:3 aspect ratio (Insignia calls it "cinema" and is the second last option on the aspect ratio menu on my set, the last being "auto" which is grayed out since I use a Roku player with an HDMI cable). The colorization reminded me of the flap over colorizing b&w TV shows some years ago, when Ted Turner owned WTBS-TV and the Turner Broadcasting System. I remember reading comments somewhere (I don't remember where) relative to colorization; many of those comments were negative, if I remember correctly. The comments, again IIRC, said that it wasn't fair or even right to colorize old b&w classic shows such as I Love Lucy, which was one of the first situation comedies to air on CBS in 1951. These shows were filmed in b&w because there probably were no (or very few) color film cameras in those days, and very, very few people even had color television receivers in their homes in the early 1950s; it is probably safe to say as well color TV did not exist until 1954, and even then the sets were so expensive hardly anyone but millionaires or Texas oil barons could afford one. This was probably just as well, since I do not believe there was much color TV programming being shown on any of the three major TV networks at the time.

NBC, the first network to program 100 percent color, did not introduce its color peacock until 1956, but then again most people saw the bird in b&w, as color TV was still prohibitively expensive until at least the late 1960s-'70s, and not all NBC affiliates were equipped for color at the time.

The network retired the peacock (and also its "snake" network logo) in 1975, although the bird is still being shown at the end of prime-time shows today, when the network runs promotions for its primetime programming for that evening. However, the peacock is often shown in nearly black and white, although perhaps 80 percent of the time it is shown in full color. NBC's "Meet the Press" set has several peacocks in the studio, although many of them are colorless; the only color peacock I've ever seen on MTP on the program's present set is in the opening and ending sequences of the program. The peacock can also be seen during periods when the network is experiencing technical difficulties, NBC's "On Demand" service, and during NBC's nightly newscast. What puzzles me, however, is why the words "NBC News" appear vertically in the studio, rather than horizontally, on the nightly news.

Is NBC trying to be cute, funny, or . . . ? I hardly think the nightly news is the place to be clowning around with special effects. In any case, this may very well be why NBC's ratings continue to be so low. NBC even had the audacity, a couple years ago, to make a jingle in which it actually sung the praises (!?) of its being number four in the ratings! I'm sure that jingle is still on Youtube, but I won't listen to it again, as NBC was once my favorite TV network; it isn't any longer. The only program I watch on NBC these days is the news, and that is only from force of habit since I've watched NBC News as long as I can remember.

And why on earth does NBC run so darned many commercials on its nightly newscast? What is worse, IMO, is the network's habit of running one news item, then a commercial, then the next news story, followed by (you guessed it!) another commercial, and so on, after the halfway point of the broadcast. I realize TV networks require a certain number of commercials to remain on the air, but good grief, a commercial after every news item is nothing short, IMO, of ridiculous. Unless NBC is running on a shoestring, I do not see why they need to run so many commercials. I remember when there were strict limits on how many commercials any local TV station or network could run in any given hour; however, those rules were apparently done away with in the 1980s.

Local NBC affiliates, such as WKYC-TV in Cleveland, often show the peacock as part of their station identification; in fact, since this station picked up the COZI TV DTV subchannel recently, it has been showing a version of that ID (including the peacock) every hour, and of course the station uses the peacock as part of its standard hourly ID on the network affiliate. The only difference the COZI TV ID has from the original ID used by the station is the channel number, which is now shown as a large numeral 3 with a smaller, raised ".3" to the right of the number. While the station customarily identifies itself simply by its call sign, channel and the peacock, the ID used on the COZI DTV subchannel is "WKYC-TV Cleveland".

BTW, most TV stations today identify themselves only by their call signs, without the "-TV" suffix as was formerly used when several stations used the same call letters, for example when the station's owner also owned an AM and/or FM radio station with the same call. The only exception to this rule these days appears to be NBC-operated WRC-TV in Washington, which has stubbornly refused to drop the "-TV" suffix from its hourly identification, even though they could if they wanted to since WRC-AM is now WTEM, and WRC-FM is now WKYS; neither station is operated by NBC any longer since its radio network was sold to Westwood One in 1986, although I have a feeling KNBR-AM in San Francisco, which used to be an NBC O&O, may still have ties to whatever may be left of the former NBC radio network, hence the decision to keep the heritage call sign.

I believe this is very unusual, since NBC did not allow the radio stations to keep their heritage calls after the network was sold, claiming that these call signs were the sole property of NBC (now NBC Universal). A prime example of this was immediately after NBC was sold to GE. The network immediately banned any use of the call signs of its flagship O&Os, WNBC-AM-FM-TV, after the sale was finalized. The reason for this probably was that the call sign WNBC was so iconic, since NBC was America's first radio (and later television) network, that the network wanted sole rights to the call sign, forbidding any other TV or radio station in the US to use it; this is why we have never heard the call letters "WNBC" (or WMAQ, WRC-AM-FM, etc.) being used on any U.S. AM or FM radio station since 1986.

I do not know, however, whether this ban extended to NBC's other owned and operated radio stations after the sale of the radio network, although it wouldn't surprise me if the ban is in effect for all former NBC O&Os (except KNBR), with severe penalties for violations.

Colorizing sitcoms is very different artistically and philosophically from colorizing classic black and white films. The old films had very carefully crafted looks to the images, which added color crudely distracts from. Sitcoms' only look is average-key broadly lighted, with no deviation for mood, and color actually can add to this.

__________________www.bretl.com
Old TV literature, New York World's Fair, and other miscellany

They put it in 4.3 because that's how it was filmed / made , no matter what you do to make it fill a 16.9 screen you will lose , you will either cut off the top and bottom of it losing some of the image or stretch it making people shorter and wider and hurting the rsolution , there are movies that are wider than 16.9 tv and so you don't lose anything there will be a slight bar at the top and bottom or else you will lse some of the image on the sides.